Koball
ViticulturAL Services
Koball
viticultural
services
With three decades of experience in certified Organic, Biodynamic, and Sustainable winegrowing on the North Coast, and being vineyard owners ourselves, we’re here to help you with whatever your Viticultural needs may be. We have the experience and industry contacts to get your problem resolved, project completed, or viticultural needs supplied.
We understand vineyards from the water below the roots to the air above the leaves, from the boot prints in the field to the withdrawal at the bank, and from the water in your pump to the regulatory buildings beyond the fenceline. These may sound cliché, but taking a holistic view of your vineyard is the first best thing that an owner can do towards creating a successful vineyard enterprise.
About David Koball
Dave Koball grew up as a family farmer in Northern California, received a BS in Plant Science from UC Davis, and an MS in Plant Pathology from Cornell University, and has been a professional Vineyard Manager and Viticulturist in certified Biodynamic, Organic, and Sustainable vineyards on the North Coast for 31 years. He has worked for family owners, corporate winery owners, Vineyard Management companies, and established his own family vineyard. Across ultra-premium and production focused sites in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties, he has developed hundreds of acres of vineyards as new and re-developments, built many reservoirs, perfected water rights, and managed annual budgets in the millions of dollars. This knowledge and experience can be utilized on your vineyard for your benefit.
Our Services
Vineyard scouting
Vineyard scouting and recommendations on whatever recurring time period you need.
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This is not only pest, disease, and fertility scouting, this is with the eyes of a seasoned vineyard manager and vineyard owner, so in addition to pest and fertility scouting, what you get is feedback on everything, including tractor work, crew efficiency, cultural practices, infrastructure repair needs, and general observations. The bulk of our career has been in organic and Biodynamic vineyards, so it is our firm belief that it’s always better to prevent an issue than to have to solve one, and that’s done by good scouting. Knowing the water status of a vineyard through monitoring devices in the field is important, and seeing what those numbers mean to the vines at a specific site is just as important. The best results are achieved when we are integrated into the vineyard management as trusted partners, with visibility on chemical application intervals and irrigation applications at a minimum, and visibility on any irrigation/soil/plant water status monitoring as a best practice.
Viticulturist services
Not big enough to have a Viticulturist on staff but wanting the extra marketing component to help get your fruit sold?
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We offer a suite of services from which you can pick and choose to cater to your vineyard’s needs. Fungicide, fertility, and insect control programs (organic and sustainable), irrigation recommendations, soil and tissue analysis with recommendations, nematode testing, pruning bud counts for crop planning, crop estimation (we also partner with crop scanning companies for total block cluster counts, red leaf counts, vine counts, etc), aerial imagery (water stress, vine counts, missing vines, NDVI) – or we can help you access free satellite imagery.
Certification & regulatory compliance
Need help with certifications or administrative organization to make certification inspections easier?
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Organic, Biodynamic, California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, Lodi Rules, Fish Friendly Farming, are all organizations with whom we are intimately familiar. Regulatory issues? We can help with water Rights, Frost Water Demand Management Programs, Groundwater Sustainability, and the upcoming Vineyard Ordinance.
Site
Evaluation
An accurate understanding of your site prior to development or redevelopment is absolutely crucial to achieving the outcome that you’re looking for, be it quality or quantity or both!
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This is achieved with a multi-disciplinary approach, examining soil, groundcover, water, topography, climate, winery needs, and understanding economic constraints of the operation. We can do basic soil evaluation with reporting and recommendations, or utilize licensed agronomists to do a higher level analysis and GIS enabled soil textural mapping. Knowing what options are possible and available in the industry can give a vineyard owner a much improved opportunity for successful outcomes.
Consulting
Sometimes we all need someone’s objective opinion about what’s working and what’s not, or how to strategize for a switch to a new style of vineyard management such as organic, Biodynamic, or Regenerative.
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Someone that can really dig in and understand your vineyard, and combining that with your goals for the vineyard, offer realistic, actionable advice, or help you to find the resources that you need. Can you simply stop cultivating and have no-till management be successful? Has the fertility, irrigation, and crop plan that you’ve been using really effective for your goals? What equipment will you need to switch to regenerative, organic or Biodynamic management? What’s the best structure and organization for your vineyard? What efficiencies can be gained by operating a little differently? How can you guarantee labor availability for the work you need to have done? How hands on are you as an owner, or how hands on do you need to be in order to realize your business plan? We’ve seen a lot of different approaches over the years, and every operation is a little different, but there are some common threads to be employed in every organization.
Irrigation Automation
We’re a fan. This is one of the easiest ways to save money, improve efficiency, yield, and fruit quality in your vineyard.
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A great example of a vineyard that can benefit from automation is a site which is somewhat remote, has a lower volume pumping capacity, and well drained soils. In warm growing regions, these sites require frequent short applications of water, and if workers have to come onsite to perform the irrigation, this can be costly. Worse, if there are multiple irrigation sets to complete irrigation on the entire vineyard, it may not be possible to get enough water out to all blocks during a heatwave resulting in significant crop loss. Unless you can irrigate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which is possible with automation. We have experience with irrigation automation including contacts with different system suppliers, and can work with you to get the right system for your vineyard.
Contact Us
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!